The Rest is Suspect

i imagine a thing to be a cube in time and essence
a stone or tree growth or the pulse in my wrist
all cubes
we climb the near face of the cube
we sniff and scrutinize and dig small divots in it
sounding for depth

unleashed and crawling on that face of the cube
are our creations, our capacities, our notes
on the nature of the cube

history and calculus and biology inform our metrics
of the cube
poems wander about and instruct us to the edge
and we can imagine the other, untraversable faces
of the thing-cube

then there comes the day we summit the top face
and staggering bewildered to its middle
hit the invisible dome that we sense
is rocketing up and outward out of hypothetical sight
perhaps curling back behind us before
straightening to its peak or to another cube or just
up, into a hole

i like to walk and feel the near face beneath my soles
and eye my flanks slyly
looking for hints in others as to what they know of the cube
and what they suspect of the dome